Struggles
by n00btmntfan
Summary: Ezra has a horrific nightmare and is concerned that it might be another vision. He goes to Kanan for guidance. One shot.


Ezra Bridger sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat.

He'd always thought that was just some kind of figure of speech, some kind of stereotypical thing that was supposed to happen after bad dreams. After all, he'd had plenty of horrible dreams in his life. Sure, his heart was racing, he could hear his pulse in his ears, and it took him a while to wind down again, but he'd never woken up like this. Not with his scalp as sodden as if he'd run ten miles. Not in a terrible combination of boiling and freezing. Not with the sensation that he had literally just lived his nightmare.

Nightmare…or vision?

His heart pounded even harder at the thought.

_Kanan. Gotta talk to Kanan._

As quietly as possible, he slipped down from the top bunk. Zeb was an extremely light sleeper. Ezra could hardly get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night without being accused of making a racket.

Thankfully, Zeb was in a deep sleep tonight.

Ezra slipped through the halls of the Ghost. He passed Chopper, who fussed at him about something. Ezra didn't care what Chopper was on about this time. He still could never figure out what the droid was saying anyway.

When he had reached Kanan's door, Ezra hesitated a moment. Was it really worth bothering him?

An image from the dream flashed through Ezra's mind again. It had all seemed so real.

Gently, he rapped on the door.

He counted his heartbeats in the moments that followed.

The door opened. Kanan blinked rapidly and squinted. "Ezra?"

"Kanan, I'm sorry, but I had to talk to you."

Kanan rubbed his eyes. "It couldn't wait until morning?"

"No," Ezra said, his voice cracking as though he had gone months without water.

After blinking a few more times, Kanan stopped squinting so hard. "What's wrong? Here – come in." He flipped on the light in his quarters and sat down on the floor in front of his bunk.

Ezra sat down opposite him. He took a moment to study his master; he'd never seen Kanan with his hair down, and certainly not in a tangled mess. "How do you tell the difference between visions and dreams?"

Kanan rubbed at the corner of his eye. "You had a dream?"

"Yeah."

"What was it about?"

Ezra hung his head. "You."

"Could you be a little more specific?"

Ezra's heart started racing. He could almost see the dream happening. "I – I killed you."

Immediately, all vestiges of sleep fell from Kanan's face. He sat up a little straighter. "By accident?"

Ezra stared at the floor.

"Ezra, you have to tell me. What happened?"

"I – we were being attacked. By the Inquisitor. He got inside my head somehow. Made me his puppet. It was like he grabbed onto everything that's ever made me mad or scared and pulled on it like strings. And – "

"He made you kill me."

Ezra almost retched at the memory. It was so _vivid, _so _real. _"Slowly. He made me cut you – cut you into pieces." His heard thudded in his chest, and rivulets of sweat dripped from his temples. "He said that if I were a real Jedi, I'd be able to resist him. Fight him off. But he said I was weak, and unfocused, and full of hate and fear…he said he'd make me live that hatred and fear until I loved it. And…I did. At the end of it all. Like I had no choice."

Kanan placed a hand over his mouth. He sat there for a few moments, absolutely impossible to read. Then he stood up and walked over to a small shelf, picked up a hair tie, and pulled back the mess of his hair. He sat back down on the bunk, giving Ezra an evaluating stare. "Do you think it was a vision?"

"I don't know."

"Why not?"

"Well…I've never…it was just so real."

"Compare it to the vision you had about the senator."

"That's just it! It _felt _the same!"

"Calm down." Kanan moved his hands in a downward gesture. "It's okay. I think it was just a dream. Visions look outside of ourselves; dreams look inward."

Ezra choked. "That doesn't make me feel any better."

"Why?"

"Because…all of that fear and hatred…it's inside me, Kanan. I try not to hate the Empire, I do…and I try not to be afraid of what's going to happen."

Kanan nodded. "It doesn't always work, does it? I know."

"You…know?"

"Believe it, kid."

"But you…"

"I have just as much reason to hate the Empire as anyone. And I did, for a long time. I was afraid, too. I lived in fear of discovery. But it's the _struggle_ that sets us apart, that makes us different from followers of the dark side. It's not that we aren't afraid, it's not that we don't feel anger or even hatred. It's that we struggle against it."

"But what if it's not enough to struggle? In the end, it's still failure."

"Absolutes are a bad way to look at things. In reality, we live in a band of gray." Kanan leaned forward and put a hand on Ezra's shoulder. "That dream was just an echo of your fears. You're afraid that you're not good enough, not strong enough. You've got to stop seeing things as either success or failure, or your fear really will cloud your whole mind."

Ezra sighed. "Thanks. That's real…reassuring."

"Hey. I believe in you. I trust you. I put my life in your hands at the temple, and you didn't let me down. I have no reason to think you'll let me down in the future."

"But what if…"

"'What if's are the property of the future. It's bad practice for the present to steal from the future."

Ezra blinked. "Do you like, have a saying for every possible occasion?"

Kanan grinned. "Pretty much."

"You really think this was just a dream?"

"I _know_ it was just a dream."

"But how?"

Kanan sighed. He braced his elbows on his knees and templed his hands in front of his mouth for a moment. "Because, Ezra, I had the same dream last night."

Ezra felt like he'd been dropped in a bucket of ice water. "But…doesn't that…"

"No," Kanan said. "The roles were reversed."

Ezra's mind spun. Kanan had dreamt that he killed Ezra. Slowly, painfully…hating himself every moment… "And you knew that it was a dream?"

"Absolutely. You can tell the difference with enough practice."

"Why didn't you just tell me, then?"

"I did."

"I mean, right away!"

"How else are you supposed to learn?"

_Great._ Kanan just had to turn everything into a teaching moment. _Fantastic._ For once – just once – Ezra would like to get a straight answer. "I think I'm gonna go back to bed now."

Kanan stood up and offered a hand to pull Ezra up from the floor.

"Thanks," Ezra muttered, taking it.

"No problem. Good luck getting past Zeb."

In spite of everything, Ezra smiled. "Thanks, Kanan."

Kanan just nodded.

As Ezra walked back to his bunk, he felt somewhat lighter.

So much lighter, in fact, that he didn't mind when Zeb threw something at him upon entering the room.


End file.
